A journey of the mind afloat in space and time. An emotion capture. Arresting images and some great poems and lyrics.

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Monthly Archives: June 2017

As a poet Eleanor Ross Taylor serves as a beacon of hope for late bloomers. A woman who put aside her writing ambitions in favour of her husbands career, she published her first poetry collection in 1960. She was then largely ignored for most of her life, despite publication of four poetry collections, until she attained overnight success 38 years later. She passed away in 2011, recognized and validated in her own lifetime.

Eve; by Eleanor Ross Taylor

The serpent in my Eden
swallowed Adam.
He slithered into meals;
of course, my bed.
Wrapped himself tighter, tighter,
all around me,
ejecting sweetish venom
in my head,
no simple adder.
That stupe’s gone, he said,
strangling,
love me instead.

May 2011 visit by Queen Elizabeth acknowledged at last Irelands WW1 legacy

As June 2017 draws to a close in broken showers and typical Irish summer weather I give you a poem about closing and June from the Poet of the Blackbirds. By rights Ledwidge is a war poet, but it became unfashionable in post revolutionary Ireland to admit to a career in the British Military. It took 100 years before the Irish nation could honour those Irish who responded to the call of John Redmond and spilled their blood on Flanders fields.

In a neat stroke of marketing Francis Ledwidge was cast as a poet of field and stream, of nature and songbirds. His Lament for the Irish patriot Thomas MacDonagh was given pride of place while his poems from the French and Turkish trenches in which he fought were swept under the carpet. Sadly even Poetry is not immune from politics.

June: by Francis Ledwidge

Broom out the floor now, lay the fender by,
and plant this bee-sucked bough of woodbine there,
and let the window down. The butterfly
floats in upon the sunbeam, and the fair
tanned face of June, the nomad gipsy, laughs
above her widespread wares, the while she tells
the farmers’ fortunes in the fields, and quaffs
the water from the spider-peopled wells.
The hedges are all drowned in green grass seas,
and bobbing poppies flare like Elmo’s light,
while siren-like the pollen-stained bees
drone in the clover depths. And up the height
the cuckoo’s voice is hoarse and broke with joy.
And on the lowland crops the crows make raid,
nor fear the clappers of the farmer’s boy,
who sleeps, like drunken Noah, in the shade.
And loop this red rose in that hazel ring
that snares your little ear, for June is short
and we must joy in it and dance and sing,
and from her bounty draw her rosy worth.
Ay! soon the swallows will be flying south,
the wind wheel north to gather in the snow,
even the roses spilt on youth’s red mouth
will soon blow down the road all roses go.

On this day in 1880 the famous Australian Bushranger Ned Kelly was captured at Glenrowan. What immortalized Kelly above other outlaws was the suit of armour he cobbled together from bits and pieces of metal. All his gang were dressed in the armour but only Kelly survived the shootout with the police at Glenrowan.

Son of Irish convict Red John Kelly a man from Tipperary , the County where I live, Ned Kelly won the hearts of the ordinary people. They represented smallholders, the downtrodden, victimized by the police and all that was wrong with the British Imperial system. Kelly was already a folk hero before his capture and there was a groundswell of opinion to pardon him. The crown saw the world differently and Kelly was hanged.

He represents the Australian psyche, a rebel spirit, a frontier mindset, a reluctance to slavishly bind to rules and laws, a desire to kick at the traces of British overlordship. Many of the original Australian settlers were convicts and their descendants who had more in common with Kelly than with the Crown. He ranks with other Aussie heroes like Jack Duggan the “Wild Colonial Boy”, and those of song and story like Clancy of the Overflow and the Man from Snowy River.

This brings me to a funny association, because one of my favourite poets is Shel Silverstein who also wrote some great songs. Here is “Blame it on Ned Kelly” from the 1970 movie starring Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones. Lots of people I love all involved in the same project.

A raunchy poet, someone who revels in the human body, celebrates it, owns it. Also a celebrated champion of African American Heritage. She was brought to public note by none other than Langston Hughes when he published her in his anthology “The Poetry of the Negro” in 1967.

She traced her roots to Benin and the celebrated Kingdom of Dahomey, home of the fierce Warrior Amazons, not of legend but of recorded history. They formed the King’s bodyguard and female regiments made up one third of all the armed forces in the Kingdom. The last of the Dahomey Amazons died in 1979, aged over 100, and claimed she fought the French, which would have been in 1892-1894.

No surprise, with roots like these, that Lucille Clifton could spin a man like a top with her big hips.

Homage to my Hips; by Lucille Clifton

these hips are big hips.
they need space to
move around in.
they don’t fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips.
they don’t like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top

Never underestimate the simple unadulterated joy to be had from holding a puppy.

If you feel sad hug a baby animal.

This is Ali, or Alley, or Allie. We know her name but not sure how to spell it yet.

Song; by T.S. Eliot

If space and time, as sages say,
are things which cannot be,
the fly that lives a single day
has lived as long as we.
But let us live while yet we may,
while love and life are free,
for time is time, and runs away,
though sages disagree.

The flowers I sent thee when the dew
was trembling on the vine,
were withered ere the wild bee flew
to suck the eglantine.
But let us haste to pluck anew
nor mourn to see them pine,
and though the flowers of love be few
yet let them be divine.

On this day in the year 1757 Robert Clive led his army of 3,000 soldiers against an Indian and French army of 50,000 at the village of Palashi, north of modern day Kolkata. On the morning of this day the British position in India was highly uncertain. The French or the Dutch could easily have ended up as paramount European power in India.

After the battle of Plassey the French were neutralised. Two years later the British were able to consolidate their position by defeating the Dutch at the battle of Chinsurah.

The Battle of Plassey was won by two secret weapons; bribery and tarpaulins. Clive negotiated a deal with Mir Jafar and a group of senior Indians. Jafar commanded the left wing of the Indian forces at Plassey, and defected to the British for a bribe. There was also an issue of two different sets of treaties that were drawn up to hoodwink certain of the conspirators. Sadly this type of double dealing is all too common in the history of British diplomatic dealings. Beware perfidious Albion.

On the military side the victory was not assured. The early stages of the battle were a stalemate as the French and English artillery pounded at each other with little strategic effect. Then the rain came down. The French and Indian artillery saw their powder drenched. Their fire rates plummeted.

This was the signal for the massive Indian cavalry contingent to sweep the British from the field. They charged the British guns only to be decimated by a hail of grapeshot. The British had tarpaulins and they deployed them to keep the powder dry. This simple expedient turned the course of the battle and gave the day to Robert Clive. The ennobled Clive built his Estate in County Clare in Ireland and named it Plassey Estate.

Across the Shannon River Thomas Maunsell, scion of another General of the British Army on the day named his Limerick House after the battle, Plassey House. These lands now house Limerick University. Students nickname the building “The White House”.